Why Pride? Because Pride has kept getting in his way. Barlow was the puppeteer holding Hamilton's strings on NCIS: New Orleans Season 3. So he took personally Pride's subverting the potential shipyard.

Barlow probably figured that Pride would continue to get in his way if he pulled anything borderline criminal during his planned ascent in Louisiana politics.

So Pride and some of his associates had to go in the name of "progress."

Force a grand-jury indictment of Pride based on Crane's expose. Mess with Pride's team by subjecting LaSalle's company to an IRS investigation.

Then, lastly, make it appear that rogue cop Pride was behind an attack on the mayor at a major municipal event.

Too bad he didn't account for all the friends and colleagues that Pride had made over a storied law-enforcement career.

What an A-Team Pride gathered: hacker Elvis, muscle Sydney, muckraker Oliver, Loretta and lawyer Fred, admittedly the weak link. Combined with his usual squad, once they wouldn't take no for an answer, he had all the talent he needed for this uphill battle.

The highlight had to be their infiltrating Barlow's law office, with the heist-sounding music in the background. It wasn't nearly as well-executed as it needed to be, but at least they were able to scrub the surveillance footage.

Elvis and Patton had far too much data to comb through, but at least they were able to isolate the general target by the end of the first hour: Tricentennial Fleet Week.

In the second hour, I was sad to see the extra help leave, "for their own good," except for Sydney, who apparently listens to no one. How did she last in the Green Berets for as long as she did?

No, Sydney was determined to protect Pride at all costs. And it was nice to have someone who wasn't overly (or at all) concerned with legal niceties around for those "special" jobs, such as surveillance, beating down civilians and breaking and entering.

Too bad she was down to one arm early on after her brawl with Parsons. The NCIS team could have used her help.

But wasn't she cool when she encouraged Barlow to kill himself to avoid ongoing humiliation?

First, Barlow arranged for LaSalle to be distracted by the IRS audit, even though it appeared there's more going on there than first met the eye. Christopher, the first rule of business is to call your lawyer, who we've seen once all season.

That left Gregorio and Sebastian, the newbies, to figure out what Barlow was up to.

Fortunately, Loretta managed to get Mayor Taylor and Gossett to let Pride back in the game. Unfortunately, he got paired up with Gossett, Barlow's mole.

That whole digital masking trick framing Pride was wild. At first, I thought it was Lonzo in a latex Pride mask, but I guess that's too old school.

It took Pride too long to piece together the frame, but, in his defense, it had been a long few days. He's at his best when most desperate, so he managed to take down Gossett and Lonzo.